Simon Abrams

The most frustrating thing about the British prenatal horror movie Kindred is not that it’s impersonal, but rather that it’s not personal enough.

Kampai! feels like a manic ensemble drama that should have been a tight three-man show.

It's refreshing to see Shark Night 3D director David R. Ellis try to pull off a semi-sincere second-generation "Jaws" rip-off, even if he doesn't quite succeed.

The Vault is not, in other words, just derivative—it’s also flabby and bland.

I’d have an easier time accepting the trite, asked-and-answered conclusions that director Muye Wen and co-writers Jianu Han and Wei Zhong lead viewers to if they were more adept at tugging at viewers’ heart-strings.

Coogan and Rudd's generally charming performances both give weight to their otherwise wisp-thin characters, but their swishy mannerisms also speak to the superficial nature of Fleming's presentation of Erasmus and Paul.

The worst thing about “Scare Out” isn’t that it’s boring and ultimately trite, but that there’s so little of Zhang’s usual sensuousness in it.

A crashing disappointment, even if you haven't seen director Masaaki Yuasa's relatively inspired and completely unpredictable 2004 anti-coming-of-age fantasy "Mind Game."

The limitations of Palansky and co-writer Mike Vukadinovich's shared vision are, realistically, the biggest problem with Rememory.

Unfortunately, The Deer King fatally (and repeatedly) stalls as its plot starts winding down and its creators lunge for a character-driven moral to a symbolically freighted parable.

The Great Buddha+ is one of those movies that's much more rewarding to think about than it is to watch.

Finley deserves credit for adding extra wrinkles to Anderson’s story, but Landscape with Invisible Hand doesn’t cut deep enough to leave a mark.

We meander from one story to the next until every idea, big and small, gets cast aside with childish zeal.

It’s not badly made, just uninspired and played out. If you like B-movies made with a budget and are specifically looking for an undemanding time, “Abigail” might be for you. “Abigail” might also disappoint you, especially if you’re hoping for more than what’s advertised.

You can fully enjoy Belladonna of Sadness if you either overlook or participate in the objectification of a gorgeous victim.

With Nocebo, Finnegan and his collaborators have put their finger on something dark and disturbing. Too bad it’s never as upsetting as it is suggestive.

There's something off about Beyond the Clouds, a beautiful but obnoxious Indian-set drama.

It’s not hard to see the appeal of “The Roundup: Punishment” given the technical polish and formulaic conventions that keep this series chugging along. But Lee still deserves better dialogue—“I made someone a promise. To punish you.”—and better jokes, too.

Dog Eat Dog may be successfully alienating, but that doesn't mean it's entertaining, thoughtful or even successfully provocative.

I was also so disturbed by this film that I felt I had to rewatch certain scenes just to confirm that the emotional exhaustion I experienced while watching it wasn't just a personal preference, but rather a problem I had with what Iwai and his collaborators do in the film.

I dislike much of Mirai because most of the film's Kun-centric scenes (which take up 90% of the movie) are split between the character's un-imaginative daydreams and his full-blast fits.

The movie version of The Reason I Jump does not, in other words, successfully illustrate what its title promises, but rather generalizes about a sensitive topic to the point of inadvertently making it seem more unapproachable.

Song's performance makes me wish the rest of A Taxi Driver was as thoughtful.

A cross between "Ocean's 11" and "The Expendables." American Renegades is also not nearly as fun as that sounds.

While the first hour of “New Gods: Yang Jian” is about as attractive as it is surreal, the back half only works if you care about the destinies of its undistinguished protagonists.

Thérèse never goes beyond that level of psychological complexity because after a point, Miller and Carter aren't interested in exploring the murky depths of Thérèse 's feelings.

The Cellar doesn't even need to be a smarter or even more faithful homage. All it needs to be is a little more of something—energetic, gross, thoughtful ... something!—to make it compelling enough to withstand comparisons to its many generic precedents.

An exhausting, and mostly frustrating display of emotional scab-picking.

While casting Glover as a reluctant everyman takes admirable chutzpah, there’s not much to “Mr. K” beyond its second-hand surrealism and strained counter-mythmaking.

Die-hard X Japan fans may enjoy seeing Yoshiki talk about his past, but everyone else will leave We Are X wondering who X Japan is.

What’s mostly lacking is a matter of character-enhancing detail, the kind that would better integrate the movie’s high-concept thrills with its heartstring-tugging melodrama. Soapy’s not bad, but “This is Not a Test” lacks the sensationalism or sensitivity to make it more than a wan misfire.

Indie sci-fi film Kill Switch is the worst kind of science-fiction film: the kind that coasts on a central gimmick instead of delivering either visceral or intellectual thrills.

The bad guy likes opera in the mostly forgettable heist/hostage thriller The Doorman, a movie that’s well-versed in clichés and basically watchable, but never really good.

Fistful of Vengeance is a movie in duration only; it’s pretty slapdash in terms of its execution, even during its glossy-looking action set pieces.

These episodic sketches immediately feel monotonous since the plot isn't arranged in chronological or sequential order; leaps in time from 1945 back to 1941 and then forward to eventually 1944 are a distracting overcompensation for an otherwise lifeless chain of impersonal betrayals, cold-blooded murders, and unbelievable moping from all involved.

Wolves is consequently too violent to be a "Twilight" knockoff, and too cuddly to be an effectively freaky tale of a boy who, to paraphrase "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah," becomes a man while also becoming a wolf.

An arty tribute to violent, sensuous, over-the-top Euro-trash pulp fiction.

This isn’t a story, but an evocative collection of asked-and-answered prompts. You buy a ticket to Pacifiction and then you react, until the nudging stops.

The filmmakers do what they can to compensate for their unlikely hero’s prevailing lack of charm and agency, but not even the combined forces of Lloyd Dobler and the Fab Four can bring a spike of joy to this DOA period drama.

Writer/director Barnaby Clay successfully keeps viewers on our toes, even if a lot of his movie feels like a series of programmatic jabs at our complacence.

The East is essentially divided into two halves, and neither is more illuminating than the other.

Some exciting moments are scattered throughout “Consumed,” but they’re never as compelling as the movie’s initial promise.

The Lodgers needs to be better than a great mood in need of a decent story and stronger characters.

There are a lot of ideas swimming around in “The Pit,” but most of them aren’t arranged well enough to demand your attention.

The new New York Ninja often feels like a pre-fab midnight movie that was made with apparent love and care but without much urgency or creativity.

Tusk is bearable thanks in no small part to its game cast, particularly character actor Michael Parks's Vincent Price-esque baddy.

The Dead Lands doesn't add up to much, but it is always on the verge of becoming more than just a bed time story for guys that wish "Braveheart" had a biceps-kissing baby with "Ong Bak."

The film's biggest problem is a matter of tone and characterization: the characters constantly talk about how mean they can be, but their actions suggest otherwise.

This movie’s not frustrating because it’s blunt or vicious, but because its creators are only so interested in a world condemning Agnes to a dire fate. Her actions may ultimately be shocking, but her story is anything but.

Villain is the kind of stiflingly reverent genre picture that is so beholden to its main characters’ pity-me worldview that its predictably downbeat ending feels like the kind of hero worship that you often find in either a cloying biopic or a hidebound true crime adaptation.

This may be Goro Miyazaki’s most eccentric feature yet, but it’s also his least engaging. Earwig and the Witch doesn’t move the way it should, and that’s lethal when your last name is Miyazaki.

Not bad enough to dissuade prospective viewers' from their curiosity. In fact, the whole feather-light affair is practically redeemed by a single entry: writer/director Anthony Scott Burns' superbly spooky Father's Day segment.

The director's gifted collaborators sometimes perk up this listless parable, but never enough to sell its second-hand fatalism.

Only the most committed genre fans and academic-minded masochists will want to hang around until the bitter, arthouse-meets-choose-your-own-adventure style ending.

Flawed but genuinely creepy ghost story The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death is disappointing, but only because it comes close to greatness.

Volf’s refusal to address key choices that Callas made to shape her own career and fight her insecurities suggests that he’d prefer to imagine Callas as a victim of fate — and bronchitis, fame, Onassis, etc. — instead of a strong-willed but human prima donna.

So weak on a basic storytelling level that it makes you want to nitpick everything about it, from characters' generically illogical decisions (ex: Why are you running towards mounted guns?) to its cheap-looking, jiggly hand-held cinematography.

It's not a complicated narrative, possibly because the movie’s designed for younger viewers. But the conception of “Drifting Home” is so stunted that its only memorable thing is its untapped potential.

Watching Campbell over her shoulder or in a mirror is frustrating because it consistently limits our view of her character. Porterfield's people can't give anything away beyond their immediate aggression, frustration, and sadness. But it's hard to appreciate an intentionally blurry portrait of a family that's so impressionistic that all you can see of its already-withdrawn characters are their shadows.

With its gleefuly nihilistic and destructive ending, What Lies Below ends on such a flat note that it makes everything before it seem like an inconsequential and/or needlessly convoluted set-up.

Pathological behavior seems to be the main subject of the bitter Ukrainian satire Donbass, an unpleasant, but as-advertised slice of life drama set in the title region, an embattled territory in Eastern Ukraine.

Immoral Tales works best when its creator is focused on surprising viewers with his perverse imagination, and not his misguided cynicism.

At minimum, “A Blind Bargain” will keep you scratching your head throughout, if not to ask yourself what it’s all about, then to wonder if maybe the filmmakers will eventually arrive somewhere unexpected. You can probably guess the answers to both questions, but maybe seeing for yourself will change your mind.

Okazaki gets close to, but never sheds enough light on, Mifune's elusive personality.

Unfortunately, much of Cryptozoo feels like an earnest, flashy genre exercise that’s more eccentric than thoughtful. It looks great on paper, but not so much on a screen.

Both an overstimulated multimedia lecture and an anxiety-stoking conspiracy thriller, “The Grab” urges viewers to follow the money, look at the big picture, and so on.

Five Nights at Freddy’s has most of the right elements for a good post-Amblin kiddy fright-fest, except maybe good dialogue and distinct characters. Watching the movie, one gets the sense that the games’ morbid personality has been sanded down to its most generic jump-scares and banal revelations.

The film's short-comings are especially upsetting since Schwarzenegger is actually rather good in the film, and proves once again that, despite a severely limited range, he knows how to brood.

Just another unimaginative rip-off.

Mud is as unmoving as it is because it doesn’t aspire to be anything other than a competent anti-fairy tale in which the paint-by-number morals are enforced by equally obvious main protagonists.

Ride On isn’t a generic beat-em-up but a stingy elegy to a bygone era of filmmaking and an unbelievable melodrama about an older artist and his estranged daughter. A lot of emotional baggage is attached to Ride On, and very little of it gets unpacked.

Unfortunately, “Back to the Past” doesn’t really stand on its own, and its creators don’t know how to offer viewers anything new.

Infectious horror-comedy Cooties is an energizing juggernaut until its seemingly inexhaustible ensemble cast members are outpaced by their respective characters' quirks.

The film is superficially tense throughout, but director Pandey doesn't know what to emphasize when.

The movie’s off-putting and constantly foregrounded political agenda wouldn’t be so unpleasant if the action scenes were more plentiful and/or thrilling. They aren’t.